In Letters from Iwo Jima, there's a quote from James Bradley (the writer of Flags of Our Fathers), who says...

Americans have always taken casualties very seriously. When the number of casualties is too high, public opinion will boil up and condemn an operation as a failure, even if we get the upper hand militarily. Kuribayashi had lived in America. He knew our national character. That's why he deliberately chose to fight in a way that would relentlessly drive up the number of casualties. I think he hoped American public opinion would shift toward wanting to bring the war with Japan to a rapid end.

...Kuribayashi was successful in inflicting a high number of casualties, and the war ultimately was brought to a rapid end. Of course, Kuribayashi was presumably hoping for the war to be ended with some kind of equitable peace agreement, not by America launching two nuclear bombs on Japanese cities.

Did Kuribayashi's strategy work too well in shifting the American frame of mind toward winning the war by any means necessary? If Iwo had been captured in less than a week as planned, how might the rest of the war been different?

Were most of them fluent in English, or were they applauding the few bits they could understand in German?

I recently found out Confederates were the first to institute a general military draft, on April 16, 1962. The order was highly controversial, since such a coercive act by a central government was seen as contrary to why the South fought the war in the first place.

According to Wikipedia, the order was riddled with exemptions, including for those with involvement in munitions production, as well as a string of professions.

A few questions, then. How pervasive was the draft? I've read that the process was terribly inefficient and disorganized. Were poor Mississippi whites as likely to be ordered to report as those in, let's say Arkansas? Which localities bore the greatest brunt of providing rank and file solders?

Given the exemptions (including one that included overseers on plantations with 20+ slaves), what narratives do we have about poor white resentment toward being forced into military service?
How was that resentment countered, through coercive and non-coercive means?

What forms of resistance to the draft among poor Southern whites have been reported? Were there any incidents of mutiny or violent opposition; a Southern equivalent of the New York City draft riots in 1863?

Finally, according to Nancy Isenberg's "Poor White Trash," the rural South was riddled with poverty and malnutrition, including significant incidence of clay eating and hookworm. Given these factors, was the health and fitness of the draftees ever a concern?

Everytime when the discussion comes to Prussians, people will always mention the Prussian military tradition. But what does it mean? It's obvious that they were rather capable soldiers for being able to maintain quite a sizeable empire, but was there actually something unique about their military? Something that makes them different from their counterparts both in the past and today?

From my limited experience, it seems like there were more female punk musicians and pioneers in the 70s than there had been female rockers in the 60s. Is this accurate? Was there a reason punk was more inclusive?

Alright so let's say I'm a privateer/pirate in the Caribbean between 1660-1670. I know there would be a variety of musket types. Spanish had their matchlocks, English had their doglocks. But when it comes to the French, I'm at a loss what they had brought in terms of muzzleloader. I know they were advanced over others but my question is, did the French rovers have true flintlocks? As in, an internal safety half-cock for loading their muskets other than their outside English counterpart. Would the Fusil Boucanier be available in that specific time period?

Thank you

I’d imagine that clearing out buildings in the brutal fighting on the eastern front would have been a lot easier with a shotgun. We’re any Soviet troops issued shotguns or were they ever used by red army troops?

I'll try to describe them to the best of my ability. Usually in areas of importance, or fortified instillation, there'd be various giant zeppelin balloons. My only guess as to what they do is to throw off enemy artillery, or to protect them from fighter pilots. Can anyone shine some light as to what they are? Thanks!

This question is a bit different in that I am asking about historiography and practices. I recently had a question removed for asking a question that moralized past events and actors. I was surprised a little bit because I had never considered this. Thinking back to high school and middle school history classes were constantly moralizing events especially in American history and giving and Us Vs Them Good Vs Bad narrative and I understand why.

So my question for professional historians is when if ever is it ok for you to moralize? Academically I can certainly see the purpose and understand the practice. Academic endeavors should be as unbiased as possible. However, surely outside of academic endeavors we can and should attribute value judgments on certain past events or else how can we learn from history?

Could someone perhaps shed a little light on the ideas and practices of professionals and explain it to me a little better?

Also, were there critics who said "To hell with past works," since their personal views of the song conflicted with what music theory was telling them?

In high school we studied several historical literature from Jose Rizal's work including Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo describing how Filipinos were treated but I don't know much of what happened during the first 300 years and why it took that long for a revolution.

It always amazes me how the societies in the west the Roman conquered, (Gaul, Iberia, Britannia) were always militarized, no matter what. they were always able to drum up armies and decent equipment, and they were passively raiding each other. Yet in the Americas and Africa and elsewhere, similar 'primitive' societies, while not always pacifist, are generally more peaceful. When the Romans moved into Celtic land, for example,it was considered a given they were hostile to each other. Peace never had a chance. When the English and Spanish moved into the Americas, they were often honored as guests and welcomed, and the societies there were not usually based on violence and raiding. (not always, of course) Why is this?

I mean Caesar had never even seen the island before, and many Romans at the time thought it was either some sort of 'El Dorado' with gold everywhere or it was just a myth completely. I would imagine Britons' perception of the Romans to be relatively comparable. So first, how would the native Britons have known Caesar was coming at all? Second how would they known when and where he would try to land, especially when bad weather in the channel meant even Caesar himself had no certain idea? And even if they knew foreign army is coming, why did that cause all the tribes to be like "no more raids, we're friends now. We should assemble all our armies and have them wait, so we can fight him as soon as possible in open terrain". The Gauls didn't act that way, I don't think. However, I have to admit it is super cool that Caesar's first sight of land was the White Cliffs lined with a foreign army, usually I would only expect that kind of thing in Hollywood.

Also, how effective was German aerial reconnaissance leading up to D-Day?

The Persian empire comquers Egypt, then Alexander conquers the Persians, and in his titles there's one with the name “pharaoh of Egypt” but did he ever was like one of the other pharaohs? Or how was his story with the egyptian crown?

I'm in an international politics class currently, and we are talking about why governments who yield immense power give rights to their citizens. And the US Civil Rights movement was brought up, and so was the US getting involved in Vietnam. He made this claim and I am wondering if there is any truth to this.

He specifically mentioned that there is documentation supporting this, but didn't care to cite them to us.